


to fill the spaces

by touchablyalive



Series: Supervillain Cissie [1]
Category: DCU, Young Justice, Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, villain origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchablyalive/pseuds/touchablyalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I’d ask my mother’s advice - and then do the opposite.”</i>
</p>
<p>Cissie is sick of the way her mother controls everything in her life. She wants her to be a superhero? Well, fine then.</p>
<p>She’ll just have to become a super<i>villain</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to fill the spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of a fun little alternate universe I thought up a while back. This probably won't become a real series, but I will be writing other short fics in this 'verse.

“Again,” Bonnie said.

Cissie groaned inwardly. It wasn’t that she didn’t love archery - she did, really! It was just that she had been practicing so long her arm was starting to go numb. It wasn’t as if she could say anything about it, though. The moment her mother even heard a _syllable_ of a complaint, she would just make Cissie switch hands, telling her, “Someday you might need to shoot with your left arm!” (Cissie didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she pointed out that it took both arms to shoot anything but a really small crossbow, anyway.) “You never know when you’ll be injured in the line of duty!” she would say. 

It was always ‘in the line of duty’ with her mother. Never ‘while fighting’ or ‘in combat’ or even just ‘working.’ Always _the line of duty_.

Sometimes Cissie wondered just _whose_ duty it was.

She stifled a sigh.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that, missy,” her mother snapped. So much for stifling, then. “You think this is boring? You don’t get a chance to stop and complain in the line of duty, Cissie. Every moment you spend away from the task at hand is one more moment that your opponent gets the advantage...”

Cissie had been hearing the same speech since before she could remember. It was easy to tune out; her mother could harp on about this stuff for _ages_.

“Are you even _listening_ to me?” her mother screeched. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Cissie said mechanically. “When I don’t take my training seriously, I’m risking my life when I go out into combat for real.”

Bonnie frowned, but even she couldn’t fault her daughter’s response.

“Fine,” she said. “Maybe you do understand. But I’m still not satisfied with your work today. Go through the course again - I want to see bullseyes on every single one of those targets!”

Cissie bit down her complaints and turned back to the range, rotating her arms. She didn’t need to stretch, not after drilling for hours and hours, but it was still a habit.

“And keep your knees together on your flips!” she heard her mother add behind her. “No daughter of _mine_ will be showing up on TMZ with a wardrobe malfunction!”

Cissie rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like _she_ had chosen to dress up in the shortest, flippiest skirt in the history of superhero costumes. 

* * *

It was more of an accident than anything. A crime of opportunity, so to speak.

No. Not so to speak. That was exactly what it had been, and Cissie knew it.

It wasn’t like it had been planned, though.

She had just really, really wanted that tab. It was... well, it was _normal_. It wasn’t bedazzled or covered in glitter; it was just plain, soft black leather, and it fit her hand _perfectly_.

Her mother would never have let her get it.

She’d glanced around, seen that there was no one there. It was so _little_ , really. No one was going to miss it. And her mother had been pushing her so hard lately; she just needed a little something for herself, right? Right?

It was stupid, and impulsive, and she had known she was probably going to end up so, so screwed because of this, but she took it anyway.

And somehow, she had gotten away with it.

Cissie knew that she should feel guilty. She knew that she was doing exactly what she was supposed to fight against. She had thought that maybe it was just the adrenaline rush that made her so exhilarated.

But a week later as she sat in her bedroom, turning the stolen tab over and over in her hand, working her fingers around it, watching the leather wrinkle as she broke it in, she was still reeling from the sheer sense of _satisfaction_.

“I shouldn’t be feeling this,” Cissie told herself. “I _stole_ something.” 

She hadn’t said the words out loud before now. They made her shiver - but out of shame or excitement, she didn’t know.

Her fingers squeaked over the leather.

“I should just bring it back,” Cissie mumbled. “Mom’s going to kill me.” It’s not like she had really needed a tab at all - she had gloves, even if they were a part of her ridiculous costume. Heck, she had _calluses_! What was she doing with this!?

_You liked it_ , said a voice inside her.

Shut up, she told it.

_But Cissie_ , the smug little voice said, _it’s such good stealth training_.

Cissie had never been great at stealth. Her mother? Even less so. Stealth just wasn’t something that came easily to anyone tromping around with a bow in a bright sparkly outfit. It wasn’t her fault - really!

But she had to admit, the voice was right. It was good stealth training. And they weren’t all Superman. They couldn’t all just bust through the roof. Sometimes they had to be more subtle. That was an essential skill for a superhero, right?

_Or_ , said the little voice, _a super_ villain.

Cissie froze. She didn’t know that such a thought had ever even been inside her. Her, a villain? It was against everything she wanted, everything she stood for...

_You know that’s not true_ , the voice scoffed.

“Shut _up_!” Cissie shouted, completely aware of the fact that she was yelling at herself.

_You never asked to be a hero_ , it continued. _That was all your mother’s idea_.

“I hate her,” Cissie said. She didn’t know if she meant it or if she was just acting her age for once - but she said it, and once she started talking, it was hard to stop. “She never listens to me. She doesn’t care about what I want. She just wants me to be a perfect version of _her_. What if I don’t want that? What if I want to be me? How am I even supposed to know who I _am_ when she insists on controlling every single aspect of my _life_!?”

She flung herself onto her bed. 

“I’m being overdramatic,” she told the ceiling. “Of course I know who I am. I’m Cissie King-Jones, and I...”

Suddenly Cissie realised she didn’t know what to say next.

The voice, she was sure, was smirking.

Maybe it was true, then. Maybe all she ever had been was the person her mother had wanted. Maybe she wasn’t anyone just by herself.

Cissie clenched her fist around the tab.

Maybe she was sick of being no one.

Maybe she wanted to fill the spaces she hadn’t yet discovered.

And maybe becoming a supervillain - the exact opposite of everything her mother had ever tried to force her to be - was exactly the way to find out who she really was.

**Author's Note:**

> [This](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2689/4457299143_56cf7d246d.jpg) is an archer's finger tab. Tabs protect the fingers from the bowstring.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
